| 1692 | If you shouldn't argue in metaphors, then you shouldn't try to define them either [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you should not argue in metaphors, it is plain too that you should neither define by metaphors nor define what is said in metaphors; for then you will necessarily argue in metaphors. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 97b37) | |
| A reaction: Impeccable logic, but seeing a similarity can be a wonderful shortcut to seeing a great truth. |
| 7775 | Understanding a metaphor is a creative act, with no rules [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Understanding a metaphor is as much a creative endeavour as making a metaphor, and as little guided by rules. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.29) | |
| A reaction: This is good news for literature studies courses. Davidson's point is that the metaphor itself only gives you a literal meaning, so it doesn't tell you how to interpret it. It seems an attractive proposal. |
| 7776 | Metaphors just mean what their words literally mean [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Metaphors mean what the words, in their most literal interpretation, mean, and nothing more. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.30) | |
| A reaction: This pronouncement must be the result of Davidson anguishing over the truth conditions for metaphors, which are usually either taken to have a 'metaphorical meaning', or to be abbreviated similes. He solved his problem at a stroke! Plausible. |
| 7777 | We accept a metaphor when we see the sentence is false [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is only when a sentence is taken to be false that we accept it as a metaphor. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.40) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very nice and true generalisation, even though Davidson mentions "no man is an island" as a counterexample. We thirst for meaning, and switch to a second meaning when the first one looks peculiar. |
| 19161 | We indicate use of a metaphor by its obvious falseness, or trivial truth [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The sentences that contain metaphors are typically obviously false or trivially true, because these are typically indications that something is intended as a metaphor. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: A nice point which sounds correct. Metaphors are famous being false, but the 'obvious' falseness signals the metaphor. If a metaphor is only obscurely false, that makes it difficult to read. |
| 8861 | Hardly a word in the language is devoid of metaphorical potential [Yablo] |
| Full Idea: There is hardly a word in the language - be it an adverb, preposition, conjunction, or what have you - that is devoid of metaphorical potential. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: Yablo goes on to claim that metaphor is at the heart of all of our abstract thinking. 'Dead metaphors' (like the "mouth" of a river) sink totally into literal language. I think Yablo is on the right lines. |
| 18022 | Metaphors tend to involve category mistakes, by joining disjoint domains [Magidor] |
| Full Idea: The fact that most metaphors involve category mistakes is not a coincidence. …A big part of them is to do with connecting objects and properties that normally seem to belong to disjoint domains. | |
| From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: Metaphysica poets took disjoint domains and 'yoked them together by violence', according to Dr Johnson. |
| 18024 | One theory says metaphors mean the same as the corresponding simile [Magidor] |
| Full Idea: On standard versions of the simile theory of metaphors, they mean the same as the corresponding simile. | |
| From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: Magidor points out that this allows the metaphor to work while being meaningless, since all the work is done by the perfectly meaningful simile. But the metaphor must at least mean enough to indicate what the simile is. |
| 18023 | Theories of metaphor divide over whether they must have literal meanings [Magidor] |
| Full Idea: There are theories of metaphors that require them to have literal meanings in order to achieve their metaphorical purpose, and those that do not. | |
| From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: I take almost any string of proper language to have literal meaning (for compositional reasons), even if the end result is somewhat ridiculous. 'Churchill was a lion' obviously has literal meaning. And so does 'Churchill was a transcendental number'. |
| 18025 | The simile view of metaphors removes their magic, and won't explain why we use them [Magidor] |
| Full Idea: The simile theory of metaphors makes them too easy to figure out, when they cannot be paraphrased in literal terms, …and it does not explain why we use metaphors as well as similes. | |
| From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: [She cites Davidson for these points] They might just be similes with the added frisson of leaving out 'like', so that they seem at first to be false, until you work out the simile and see their truth. |
| 18026 | Maybe a metaphor is just a substitute for what is intended literally, like 'icy' for 'unemotional' [Magidor] |
| Full Idea: According to the substitution view of metaphors, a word used metaphorically is merely a substitute for another word or phrase that expresses the same meaning literally. Thus 'John is an ice-cube' is a substitute for 'John is cruel and unemotional'. | |
| From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to capture the denotation but miss the connotation. Whoever came up with this theory didn't read much poetry. |
| 18028 | Gricean theories of metaphor involve conversational implicatures based on literal meanings [Magidor] |
| Full Idea: Gricean theories of metaphor …assume that conversational implicatures are generated via literal contents, and hence that a sentence cannot generate an implicature without being literally meaningful. | |
| From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: Magidor gives not details of such theories, but presumably the metaphor is all in the speaker's intention, which is parasitic on the wayward literal meaning, as in cases of irony. |
| 18029 | Non-cognitivist views of metaphor says there are no metaphorical meanings, just effects of the literal [Magidor] |
| Full Idea: According to non-cognitivists there is no such thing as metaphorical meaning. …The effects on the hearer are induced directly via the literal meaning of the metaphor. | |
| From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: [This is said to be Davidson's view] I wonder how many people defended some explicit 'metaphorical meaning', as opposed to connotations that accumulate as you take in the metaphor? Any second meaning is just a further literal meaning. |
| 18027 | Metaphors as substitutes for the literal misses one predicate varying with context [Magidor] |
| Full Idea: A problem with the substitution view of metaphors is that the same predicate can have very different metaphorical contributions in different contexts. Consider 'Juliet is the sun' uttered by Romeo, and 'Stalin is the sun' from a devoted communist. | |
| From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: The substitution view never looked good (especially if you like poetry), and now it looks a lot worse. |